Did NY Mag Rush Their James Frey Feature Online Only After Learning Of WSJ Scoop?
Readers of both NYMag.com and the Wall Street Journal’s website may have noticed that in the wee small hours of the morning, both publications posted similar but competing articles about author James Frey and Full Fathom Five, the book-packaging company he launched to churn out young adult fiction. As it turns out, New York’s version was rushed online only after the magazine learned that the WSJ was about to scoop them on a story they’d had in the works for weeks. The articles’ tones vary drastically. The WSJ’s Katherine Rosman and Lauren A. E. Schuker offer a measured view of Frey’s operation, noting how little Frey pays the young writers he employs (“they get $250 upon signing and another $250 upon completion of a book”) as well as how successful its first major product, a story called I Am Number Four that’s being adapted into a movie by Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg, has been. New York Magazine’s Suzanne Mozes, by contrast, is unabashedly negative in her (much-longer) piece. She
